I’m starting to find that teaching is actually really hard. I think that when I started that I was just terrified that I’d run out of stuff to say, or that I’d look like an idiot. I remember the panic when my first hour long lecture, which i was convinced would over run ended after 35 minutes.

I’m much calmer now these days, but begin in the situation where I’m teaching, and being taught at the same academic level is still a very strange situation to be in.

The main struggle I have now is about the nuances of teaching, I feel that I’m got to the point now where I can see that there is a huge amount of stuff I don’t know. Not so much about the subject, but more about the best way to engage other people, and make them think that the thing that I thought was worth learning about enough to get to this level is exciting enough to want to learn it too.

I suppose that is the difference between teaching and just spouting information is the same one that they argue endlessly about in white men can’t jump.

Sidney Deane: Look man, Your can listen to Jimi but you can’t hear him. There’s a difference man. Just because your listening to him doesn’t mean you’re hearing him.

The bit of air between my mouth and the student’s ears is where the information gets lost, and that’s just the start of the difficulties! I can’t possibly teach all the stuff that they need to know, so how do I inspire/threaten them into doing the extra work needed?

One of the big problems I have is structuring my time in the alloted 3 hours. Teaching GC is very complicated, and there are a few different things that people need to be able to understand in order to understand the basics. This means that there will always be a fair bit of very specific personal time needed, but that eats into the time that I can spend being ‘inspirational’ and doing the grand stuff like teaching a new approach to something.

If I teach this next semester, I think that a much more structured approach is needed,  a more fundamental grounding, spending a bit longer gettign everone up to speed, rather than giving them the high speed ‘get going in a flash’ teaching that I am accustomed to from a workshop basis. Also i think that I need to be a bit more dictatorial, and less Stiener, less asking peopel what they want to learn and more predetermined deadlines. That might be tricky, it’s not very me.

There are all sorts of things that i’m sure i’ll be away more eloquant about when it’s not 2am.